338 ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETIES. 



tables, of which we know nothing save by report. In 

 the good times coming, through the successful labours 

 of the Acclimatisation Society of Great Britain, Ireland, 

 and the Colonies, we hope to dine upon Chinese lamb 

 and Chinese yams, and to find them agreeable substi- 

 tutes for British lamb and lettuce ; and as such things 

 have appeared at the first annual dinner of this Society, 

 it does not seem too sanguine to hope that we too may 

 partake of such delicacies as Kangaroo ham, Syrian pig, 

 Canadian goose, guan, curassoa, pintail ducks, Hon- 

 duras turkey, dusky ducks, and leporines. 



It must be admitted that there is room for diversify- 

 ing our customary fare. Without being over-addicted 

 to creature comforts, it is allowable to experience a 

 longing for something less common than the mutton, 

 beef, arid pork on which our cooks exert their talents. 

 And when our posterity read of the pains we were at 

 in enlarging the means of public alimentation, and in 

 adorning our country with such noble trees as the Wel- 

 lingtonia, the Araucaria, and the Deodara, they will not 

 only be grateful, but stimulated, let us hope, to imitate 

 our example, and exert themselves in widening the- 

 sphere of human knowledge and enjoyment. 



We think too little of the influence of man over ani- 

 mated nature, and of his power of surrounding himsell 

 in all climates with the productions and the animals 

 which he requires in order to fulfil his mission to pos- 

 sess arid subdue the earth ; and, by not reflecting upon 

 what has been already accomplished, we deprive our- 

 selves of the stimulus to hope furnished by the contem- 

 plation of the vast results already achieved. We are 

 living upon animals and vegetable productions which 

 in the course of ages have been acclimatised and natu- 

 ralised slowly, because, in many instances, not design- 

 edly, but through the intervention of accident and 

 foreign conquest. It is not pretended that this is the 

 native country of wheat, oats, or barley; of the apple, 

 the pear, or the cherry; of the horse, the ox, the ass, 



